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Florida, US: Dead bee mystery has state officials buzzing

Margaret Kavanagh
13 News
Fri, 30 Sep 2011 07:57 UTC
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© UnknownMillions of dead bees mysterious turn up in the southern part of Brevard County.
Millions of dead bees mysterious turn up in the southern part of Brevard County.

Officials with the Department of Agriculture are trying to figure out what caused them to die. They have gathered samples of the dead bees and send them to the state lab to be tested.

Officials with the state told News 13 over the phone that it appears some type of aerial application of a pesticide might have been sprayed on the area. However, they said it is too early in the investigation to know for sure.

Two beekeepers were affected and this mystery is a huge loss for both of them.

Fellsmere beekeeper Charles Smith said the dead bees were supposed to be bound for California to help pollinate almond trees.
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Stop

UK: Mystery as beached whale found in field in Yorkshire


The Telegraph
Wed, 28 Sep 2011 10:00 UTC
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© Anna Gowthorpe/PAThe carcass of the young female sei whale lies on the banks of the Humber estuary at Skeffling, east Yorkshire
A young whale which died after it beached in the Humber Estuary is probably of a species rarely found stranded on the British coast, conservationists have said.

Experts examining the 33ft (10m) long animal, which died about 875 yards (800m) from the shoreline, say they are 95% sure it is a female sei whale.

The animal was trapped in shallow water near the East Yorkshire village of Skeffling, on the north bank of the River Humber.

Andy Gibson, of the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, said Sei whale strandings were very rare.

He said there had only been three strandings of this species in UK waters in the last 20 years.

''It is sad. It was in shallow water of about 1.2m (4ft) to 1.6m (5.25ft), making contact with the bottom,'' Mr Gibson said.
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Bizarro Earth

Mystery of Canada's Missing Salmon Continues

Anne Casselman
Nature
Wed, 28 Sep 2011 17:38 UTC
Sockeye Salmon
© Werner Van Steen / Getty ImagesThe number of sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) in the Fraser River has fallen dramatically over the past two decades.

Multi-million dollar judicial inquiry expected to offer few solutions to declining fish stocks.

As the last of this year's sockeye salmon battle up the Fraser River along the southern outskirts of Vancouver, Canada, a rather longer battle about the fishes' fate is drawing to a close in a staid courtroom downtown.

More than 4.5 million salmon have surged along the Fraser this year, returning to spawn before dying. But that is far fewer than the sockeye runs of 20 years ago, when the river was the world's single largest source of Pacific salmon, contributing hundreds of millions of dollars each year to British Columbia's economy.

Back in 2009, when just 1.5 million out of a forecasted 10.6 million fish returned to the river, Prime Minister Stephen Harper called for a judicial inquiry into the missing salmon and appointed Bruce Cohen, Justice of the Supreme Court of British Columbia, to preside over the mammoth task. The last of the inquiry's 128 witnesses are taking to the stand this month. Yet scientists and the public are questioning whether the Cohen Commission, which has cost an estimated CAN$25 million (US$24.4 million), has been a waste of time.
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Fish

Gulf Oil Spill Could Cause Lasting Damage to Fish Populations, Study Finds Cell Abnormalities and Toxicity

Juliet Eilperin
The Washington Post
Mon, 26 Sep 2011 06:00 UTC
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Fish living in Gulf of Mexico marshes exposed to last year's oil spill have undergone cellular changes that could lead to developmental and reproductive problems, a group of researchers reported Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The study, which was funded by the National Science Foundation and the BP-funded Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative, suggests scientists are just beginning to capture the spill's ecological impact. The team of researchers from Louisiana State, Texas State and Clemson universities focused on the killifish, a minnowlike fish that is abundant and a good indicator of the health of wetlands.

Killifish residing in areas affected by the spill showed cell abnormalities, including impaired gills, two months after the oil had disappeared, researchers found. Killifish embryos exposed in the lab to water from the same site, which had only trace amounts of chemicals in it, developed cellular abnormalities as well.
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Magic Wand

Scotland: Rare sighting of sperm whale off Skye


BBC
Sat, 24 Sep 2011 03:25 UTC
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© Calum Macaskill/HWDTThe MacAskills captured an image of the whale's tail fluke
The large marine mammal was seen and photographed by islander Calum MacAskill and his wife on a boat trip in the Sound of Raasay last Saturday.

Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust (HWDT) said the last confirmed sighting of a sperm whale in the area was made in 2008 off Canna.

A bull sperm whale can grow to 20m (67ft) long and is the largest living toothed animal.

HWDT said the Skye sperm whale was believed to have been a male and was feeding at the time.
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Fish

Piranha Problem Takes Bite Out of Brazilian Beach Fun


Agence France-Presse
Sun, 25 Sep 2011 15:00 UTC
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© Agence France-PresseA Piranha swims inside of an aquarium in 2010 in Dubai.
Authorities in a state in Brazil's northeast are scrambling to take the fright and the bite off the beach after piranhas sunk their teeth into about 100 beachgoers, UOL Noticias reported.

The problem -- rather fearsome given piranhas' horror-movie teeth and ability to sink them into human flesh -- has been the biggest at the main beach area in Piaui state; authorities said they need to act fast to reduce a piranha overpopulation situation.

Last weekend, at least 100 bathers were treated at the hospital in Jose de Freitas not far from Terezina, Piaui's capital, after being bitten on the heels or toes at the local beach.

"Since they have no predators, piranhas have started attacking people on the beach," said Romildo Mafra, a local environment official.

Environmental officials so far have added tilapia to the piranhas' local food chain hoping to quell some of the predators' hunger.
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Bizarro Earth

Ghana: Unknown pollutant kills nearly 10 tons of fish in the Butre Lagoon


Joy News
Mon, 26 Sep 2011 09:29 UTC
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The Environmental Protection Agency in the Western Region is investigating the source of a pollutant which has killed nearly 10 tons of fish in the Butre Lagoon in Takoradi.

Though details remain sketchy, the Agency is not ruling out the possibility of a chemical pollution as officials await laboratory results to ascertain the cause of this serious environmental breach.

Joy News' Western Regional correspondent, Kwaku Owusu Peprah reports that some residents of the area who consumed the dead fishes are said to be suffering from some serious stomach upsets.
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Bizarro Earth

Canada: Massive Whales Make Rare Appearance in B.C. Waters

Judith Lavoie
The Montreal Gazette
Wed, 21 Sep 2011 02:54 UTC
Whales
© Gretchen Freund, Postmedia News

Victoria - The sound of lengthy whale blows, echoing through the fog in Robson Bight, caught whale researcher Marie Fournier's attention Monday as she kept watch at an OrcaLab outpost.

Then, out of the fog, swam two massive fin whales - something never previously documented in Robson Bight, off the northeast coast of Vancouver Island.

Fin whales, the second largest animal after blue whales, are starting to return to B.C. waters after being almost wiped out by decades of whaling, but they usually prefer the open ocean and recent sightings have been several kilometres offshore.

"I was completely surprised. I had to do three or four double takes to make sure what I was seeing," Fournier said.

The identity giveaway was the size of the animals, estimated at about 22 metres, and their huge blows, reaching five metres into the air, said Fournier, who then called Jared Towers, a Fisheries and Oceans research technician.

When Towers arrived to take identification photographs he discovered that he photographed one of the whales in Hecate Strait last summer.

"Just by luck it turned out to be the same animal," Towers said.

It is hoped that the growing catalogue of photos will give some idea of the size of the fin whale population off Canada's west coast, he said.
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Bizarro Earth

US: South Florida Invaded by Giant Snails


msnbc.com
Mon, 19 Sep 2011 14:22 UTC
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© Unknown
Florida is used to strange creatures, but the discovery of a non-native animal - a giant snail from East Africa - has got local officials really worried.

A search-and-destroy advisory that went out included this bit of history: the last time the giant snails were found in Florida (back in 1966) they had multiplied from three to 18,000 in seven years and cost $1 million to eradicate.

The new population of giant African land snails was found in Miami-Dade County, and several dozen technicians were quickly dispatched to search them out.

About 1,000 were found Thursday within a one-square-mile radius, the Miami Herald reported. Several hundred were found in one backyard in Coral Gables. How they got there was not immediately known.

The snails were sent to freezers to be frozen to death.

Why worry? Besides their intimidating size - up to 8 inches long and 4 inches in diameter - "they consume at least 500 different types of plants, can cause structural damage to plaster and stucco, and can carry a parasitic nematode that can lead to meningitis in humans," the Florida Department of Agriculture said in a statement Thursday.
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Fish

Another mass die-off: Millions of fish found dead in China

Jonathan Benson
Natural News
Sat, 17 Sep 2011 16:44 UTC
fish kill,china
© ChinaDailyMillions of dead fish have been found in several townships in the county since Aug 31, with reported loss of up to hundreds of millions yuan. The cause of the mass death remains unknown.

Two days before the massive 9.0+ magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Japan, millions of dead fish were found mysteriously blanketing waters at King Harbor Marina in Redondo Beach, California.

And in a similar turn of events, millions of dead fish were recently discovered floating in China's Minjiang River -- just a coincidence, or a sign of worse things to come?

What's on Xiamen, a Chinese news source, reports that countless millions of dead fish were found floating on a large portion of the Minjiang River stretching from Huangtian in Gutian County, to Shuikou, an area that represents the largest grass carp breeding region in China's Fujian Province. As many as nine million fish have reportedly died in Huangtian alone, thus far.
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